Being There.

It is not easy being a dad! I know, no one said it was, but all the same it's tough sometimes.

We had our social inquest Saturday.

Right now 'Cold Case' is on TV. The subject is a boy who has been abused and killed, his father found guilty.
Clearly by the end of the Story line the father will be vindicated, and the boy will still be dead. I can't watch.
I have to move away. It makes me feel like I am nut case that I get so moved, so emotional. I just well up and have to move away.

So Saturday morning, a lady about my own age, maybe a few years younger arrived at the house. The moment I saw her I thought,
'Civil Servant', 'child care', 'hippie'. I stereotype with the rest of you. She had dirty blonde (although clean) curly shoulder length hair. She has probably never worn make up and her skin looked like she had smoked too much. She had extremely kind eyes. She wore very short synthetic skirt, horizontal stripes on her black nylons, teddy boy style shoes, and a synthetic hoodie. I could see her rolling smokes in a bar at home with a pint of Guinness in front of her. Salt of the earth.

Once or twice I came up against her complete knowing. She would point out something was or wasn't good for a child. She would somehow demostrate with a shake or nod of the head that her knowledge on that particular point was written in stone, applied to all situations, all children, and only she could be right. She wasn't a bad person. She did her job thouroughly. She asked a lot of questions. Questions about the past, questions about how I met Boy's mother, how he arrived, how we left Ireland, how we split up, how I managed to stay. I tried to be me. I told her what I could but it was heavy emotionally. I didn't want to get into the blame and retribution and I fear that my reluctance will make me loose out in the end. Who knows? Who could possibly know.
She wanted to know how I met Lover. If this baby was an accident too. If someday I was going to do things in the right order... it was said with kindness but the consequences of it could be huge.

I have been amiss in applying the judgement. My ex asked me not to send my son to the day care center that she would look after him when I was at work. I reluctantly agreed and the upshot is, he is not here tonight. He should be but he isn't. He will be here tomorrow. My listening and giving in again has caused only problems. I should have applied it to the letter. I should have insisted. I shouldn't have had to insist. So tonight I did. I told her we have to do what the judge said. This is what the Social woman said. But when she said it she used it as a way of explaining to the child. Funny how it has to be explained to the adults too.

I have posted the first cheque. You would not believe how difficult it is to contact a bank employee and get them to do things with the money I have given them. It will happen in time. But for the moment I can't get a standing order orgainsed. I have already spent the last week trying to do it...not an excuse.

So now what?

So now tomorrow I have to do something I am not comfortable with. I have to contact social woman and explain what has happended this holiday. I already told her perhaps the holiday came too soon after the judgement, there was some emotion around it, we hadn't managed to discuss Christmas yet....my God after last Christmas I am not so positive.

Well there you go. Where am I ? I am fucking sore. I have a trapped nerve in my back to complicate matters. I am getting fixed but it is really slow. I am impatient.

Boy is delighted baby will be here soon. Lover is suffering from a cold almost constantly but in truth, I have seen a lot of pregnant women in my day, this is a piece of cake as far as pregnancies go. I don't mean that in a macho way. But she has been generally energised, there have been no complications, physically she is healthy and strong so why would it not be good. I am very positive.

Once baby arrives, and boy's future is decided, we can buy the apartement, then I can focus on my two dreams apart from raising my children. Iron man and writing my Novel or my movie and either way telling stories....

If I don't read you, or I have not been by your blog in a while, I think of you anyway.